Thursday, March 19, 2009

Oedipus The Movie

At first, I thought I would be enjoying the movie 'Oedipus Rex'. It was a led down. I seriously enjoyed reading the play 'oedipus rex' compared to the other 2 books (play) that I have read. I really had high hope and looking forward to watching the movie. But, it was a sad thing that I did not enjoy the movie at all.
There are many things that I realised while watching the movie. They are:
  1. Oedipus the king does not have a club foot.
  2. The king is younger than I expected.
  3. The king's costume is not suitable at all. He wears as if it is a pyjamas (this is so suprising because I realise Creon wears more proper than Oedipus does).
  4. The character, Oedipus is not portrayed well.
  5. Oedipus in the movie does not really speak like a King.
  6. Oedipus in the movie does not sound caring or concerned at all towards his people compared to the text.
  7. The most obvious difference is that the setting: The setting in the movie is at a colloseum, whereas in the book, the setting is in the castle.
  8. It does not make sense that Oedipus can run up and down the stairs of the colloseum when he has a club foot.
  9. Teiresias look very big in size, not exactly what I have had in mind. He actually reminds me of Hagrid in 'Harry Potter'. Haha.

The movie has actually made me more confused with the drama. The movie is not adopted fully from the original text. The producer actually edited the story. Besides, the movie is not at all attractive. Both the audio and visual system is not good. The speeches are unclear and the movie is blur. I lost my interest to continue watching because I can hardly hear what they are talking about. The charcters in the drama are not portrayed well enough. Therefore, I still prefer reading the original text than watching the movie again.

If the movie is ever to be produced again, I hope they will improve on the speeches and the characters portrayal. The characters play a vey imprtant role in making a movie attractive. Besides, I hope, the porduct will follow exactly what is in the drama, especially the fact that OEDIPUS THE KING HAS A CLUB FOOT!!!

Don't you agree?

3 comments:

  1. First thing first, I thought the movie was a pretty faithful adaptation. You can't ever expect a movie to be EXACTLYY like the book, but most of the key plot points and dialogue were there, they were just tweaked. Some of the lines from the book were actually in different scenes or they changed the wording a bit. Do you find all the Harry Potter movies adapted EXACTLY like the books? If you do, then watch the movies and have the books opened on your laps.

    The movie is blurry because I downloaded it from Youtube. I couldn't find the DVD version available to download as the movie was not well-promoted/marketed.

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  2. oh..really.. my apology then..but still..Oedipus should have a club foot..

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  3. I agree with you, Hui Nee. There are some obvious differences between the original play and the movie. Oedipus in the movie did not walk like a club foot. It was indeed ridiculous and funny that he could really run up and down the steps without showing a single bit of signs as being a club foot. Besides, actually at first I thought Creon was Oedipus as he dressed up more properly and looked like a King more compared to Oedipus. I also agree that the setting was different from the original play. Perhaps they had altered the play a bit I guess. Luckily we had gone through the original play with Dr. Edwin thoroughly so that we can compare and contrast the two works. Still, there are some confusion raised after we watched the movie. Hence, when we become teacher in few years time, we must choose over the movies carefully and make sure the originality of the movie regarding the original play. If not, it will be a hard time for the students.

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